ix, 363 pages ; 23 cm

"Paul Ricoeur has been hailed as one of the most important thinkers of the century. Oneself as Another, his greatest work to date, substantiates this position." "Ricoeur focuses here on the concept of personal identity, a major theme of contemporary philosophy. Running throughout the book are three key issues: the concept of self; the notion of identity or sameness; and the relation to otherness, or to that which is not self." "In Oneself as Another, Ricoeur's primary aim is to develop a hermeneutics of the self that will chart its epistemological path and ontological status. A second philosophical concern of the book is to differentiate two meanings of identity that will give rise to a dialectic of selfhood and sameness." "Ricoeur is concerned generally to distinguish personal identity from, and place it in the context of, the idea of a universal subject or transcendental ego that seems to be required by ethics. The book pivots on a series of "who" questions that, as Ricoeur points out, we are forced to address when we judge a person's character or behavior: Who is speaking? Who is the agent? Who is the narrator? To whom are good or bad actions attributed?" "Applying the tools of analytic philosophy to these questions, Ricoeur discovers a sense of "self" that is not personal and holds for all grammatical persons. A notion of solicitude is central here, for by showing that there are nonpersonal aspects of the self that require solicitude, he indicates the direction from the self to the other and clarifies moral problems that appear to founder on the issue of identity. His identification of the nonpersonal concept of the self with the concept of the other thus exposes the key to the Moral Law." "Oneself as Another expands on the Gifford Lectures that Ricoeur gave in Edinburgh in 1986 and published in French in 1990. It will be widely discussed among philosophers, literary critics, historians, and social scientists."--Jacket

Based on the 1986 Gifford lectures, given by the author

Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction : The question of selfhood -- "Person" and identifying reference : a semantic approach -- Utterance and the speaking subject : a pragmatic approach -- An agentless semantics of action -- From action to the agent -- Personal identity and narrative identity -- The self and narrative identity -- The self and the ethical aim -- The self and the moral norm -- The self and practical wisdom : conviction -- What ontology in view?

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